MELAKA AIMS FOR 12.5 MILLION TOURISTS IN 2012

4 MILLION IN FOUR MONTHS: Chinese, Singaporeans and Indonesians among top arrivals

MALACCA: More than four million tourists visited the state in the first four months of this year, an increase of 13.3 per cent compared with the same period in 2011.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam said of the 4.11 million tourists, 2.92 million were domestic tourists while the rest were foreigners.

“From January to April last year, Malacca saw some 3.62 million tourists visiting the state.

“But this year, for the same corresponding period, we saw an increase of 481,217 visitors.

“Foreign tourists saw a sharp increase of 37.3 per cent or 321,441, while domestic visitors grew by 5.8 per cent or 159,776 people,” he said.

Based on a report by the State Tourism Department, Ali said the top five foreign country tourist arrivals were China with 222,999 tourists, Singapore (185,277), Indonesia (168,190), Taiwan (108,128) and Hong Kong (57,241).

“As for the domestic tourists, the bulk of them were from Selangor, which recorded 773,271 tourists, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 666,520 tourists and Johor stands at the third place with 484,748 tourists.”

In the area of health tourism, Ali said some 141,602 people had sought treatment from three major private hospitals in the state — Mahkota Medical Centre, Putra Specialist Hospital and the Pantai Hospital Ayer Keroh.

“This figures comprises 81.6 per cent of the total number of tourists who came to Malacca to seek medical attention, with a majority of them coming from Indonesia with 29,789 people.

“Other foreigners who come here for medical tourism are from Singapore, China, Middle East and also Bangladesh.”

Ali also said museums in the state were the most popular attraction among tourists as they attracted 312,058 people, followed by the Malacca River Cruise (279,338 visitors), Malacca Zoo (176,943) and Menara Taming Sari (169,340).

Ali said the state government’s initiative in developing a variety of attractions had resulted in the drastic rise of tourists in this state, thus making Malacca a must-visit state in Malaysia.

“Besides this, several tourism aspects such as hygiene, tourists’ safety and communication facilities were crucial factors in attracting tourists to the state.

“Our ‘Think Tourism and Act Tourism’ initiative also managed to get the people to realise the importance of tourism to the state’s economy and this, too, is vital in ensuring we remain on top in the country’s tourism scene.”